


Old Wounds

by idrilhadhafang



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Complicated Relationships, Fix-It of Sorts, Injury, M/M, Missing Scene, Past Torture, Pre-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Stranded Together, Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:22:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24787648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: Poe and Kylo crash-land on a planet pre-TROS and have to work together to survive.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Kylo Ren
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	1. Landing

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

It was Poe who woke first. Poe, remembering the dogfight over whatever-the-hell-that-planet was, finding BB-8 and realizing Kylo was likely in the grass somewhere. 

Kylo. Yes. They’d both been reluctant to fire on the other, so their buddies had done it for them. That was why they were here. Even though Poe should have, he still didn’t pull the trigger. 

Poe stumbled through the grassland, towards Kylo Ren's prone body. Maybe after everything, he should have left him to die, but he was Poe Dameron, and he wasn’t about to do that to anyone, even someone who tortured him. 

Besides, Ben had been his friend once. Once upon a time. Long ago, he had been a good man, and a good friend. Someone that Poe could have loved, if given the opportunity. 

Had Ben felt the same way, Poe couldn’t help but wonder. Had Ben felt anything for him, or had he simply, honestly meant nothing to him? Thrown out in favor of Rey...

Even that thought was enough to make him shudder. Rey was the latest person he’d turned his attentions on. Even if Rey was arrogant and thought everyone else was inferior (except maybe Kylo), Poe wouldn’t want her at his mercy.

And still, another thought was that maybe he should be glad Ben evidently felt nothing for him at all. Would he want to have someone like Kylo all but focused on him, hyperfocused really? Would he want that, after Kylo had done...that?

( _Shadows and hands and pain..._ )

And then there was the fact that Ben had done that. Ben, of all people. It should have been easy to discount Ben as a monster, but he’d done good too. He’d comforted Poe after his mother’s death, he’d come back for Poe when Poe had run off to the Spice Runners. 

So he didn’t leave Kylo. Even though Kylo probably wanted him to. Even though looking down at Kylo was enough to give him a whole maelstrom of emotions — emotions brought back by things long forgotten. 

He was Poe Dameron, and maybe, just maybe, he could at least attempt to be a better man than Kylo ever dreamed of being. 

***

There was a shed, a shed where Poe could at least form his own little medbay. Fill it with medical supplies, fill it with things to treat the cuts that Kylo had gotten in the crash. His TIE Silencer was pretty much kaput now, as well as Black One. Again. It seemed that no matter what the version, Black One went through some sort of form of bad luck. 

Poe studied him, really studied him. Studied the long, thin line on his cheek where Rey had slashed him. It was healing, a long, thin line that trailed down his cheek and Poe supposed he should feel satisfied that Rey had beat him. Instead, he felt a sort of sorrow that it had even come to this in the first place. 

It wasn’t supposed to be that way.

_You could have been more, dummy. You could have been amazing, raw, beautiful. I would have given you the world and you threw it away. Why? What was there to even gain?_

Kylo stirred, looked up at Poe. In between the old oh-kriff moment of realizing that Kylo could still read his thoughts (and they’d apparently been powerful enough to wake him up), Poe also felt a sort of oh-kriff moment in realizing oh-kriff-he’s-awake.

”Poe?” he said, and that simple name shouldn’t have given Poe shivers, but it did. 


	2. To Blows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo wakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

The shed seemed like a confining space for the both of them even as Poe treated Kylo’s wounds, that look of disbelief on Kylo’s face like he couldn’t believe that Poe was treating him, even though Kylo had hurt him in one of the worst ways imaginable. 

”You could have just left me,” Kylo said. 

”You could have just fired on me,” Poe said. “You didn’t...and I don’t know why. You didn’t have a problem torturing me. Or even just letting your stormtroopers beat the stuffing out of me...”

”You’re wrong there,” Kylo said softly. 

”You enjoyed it. You had to. Because you became one hell of a monster when you were gone for six years.”

Kylo looked pained. Then, “I am a monster. But I didn’t enjoy what I did to you. In regards to the interrogations...I never enjoyed them.”

He sounded sincere. Poe didn’t know how much of it was sincere, though. At all. He couldn’t read Kylo — not like Kylo had...read him. 

”Then why?"

Kylo paused. “Your General — ”

”I overheard what you said about Rey. She told Finn about it. Not FN-2187. Finn. I don’t know how you became such a vicious, bitter schutta who blames everyone except himself for a family split he created out of spite — ”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

”Yeah. Maybe I don’t. I didn’t know you were a spoiled schutta who was jealous of a girl just because his uncle would have preferred her to someone like you. I mean, maybe if you’d tried harder to be a better person he wouldn’t hate you — ”

The sheer _look_ on Kylo’s face let Poe know he’d gone too far. He looked like he wasn’t actually looking at Poe right now. Like he saw someone else. Luke? Snoke? Who knew?

”You act like I never tried at all.” Kylo said. His voice sounded like it was trembling on the edge of a knife. “You think I didn’t feel it? That...need to be perfect?”

Poe was silent. He didn’t know what to say, except for the fact he had seen it, instances where Ben had confided in him that he hadn’t felt good enough. Being gifted wasn’t enough; he still felt incompetent and stupid. Being kind wasn’t enough; he’d still felt like he was cruel and too flawed. And Poe...Poe saying that they weren’t that dissimilar didn’t seem that convincing. Because Ben somehow thought he was worse than everyone else. 

Had Poe reinforced it, in a way? Kylo had done bad things, and bad things deserved to be called out, but nonetheless...

"I was wrong,” Poe said. 

”Everything you said was wrong. Did General Organa tell you these things?”

Poe paused. She hadn’t. Now that he thought about it, she hadn’t. She’d probably be angry at him again if she learned what he’d said. Even if Kylo had committed patricide. 

Even if...

”So it was all on your own.” Kylo said. 

Even as Poe tended to his wounds as best he could, he didn’t know why Kylo sounded so pained when he’d said that sentence.

Kriff. Was Poe the jerk in this situation? That was a good question.

“I just don’t know what happened to you, Ben.”

He could have sworn Kylo flinched a little. Then, “I didn’t fall out of spite. I know that. You would know that.”

Poe swallowed. Kylo was right. "And the torture...?”

”Snoke’s orders. He threatened to have you killed if I didn’t. And leaving...I doubt I could leave after what I’ve done. That I could have left.”

It sounded unbelievable. But it made sense. Too much sense. It wasn’t like the real Ben, the proper Ben, would have just hurt him. Not without someone making him do it, at least.

It would make sense, Poe supposed. 

Poe nodded. There was one piece of the puzzle. 

”There wasn’t any point to hurting you,” Kylo said. “Torture’s pointless. That’s another reason I hate it. And it is something else doing it to someone you...”

He trailed off. There was something, Poe thought, something there. But he wouldn’t say it. Poe wished Kylo would, actually. Anything at all.

”You’re recovering nicely,” Poe said.

”Force users can survive a lot,” Kylo said. “I suppose I’m no exception.”

He closed his eyes. For a moment, Poe could imagine that they were in kinder times, on the same side, and everything was all right. 


End file.
